Beware!! Facebook murder

Cynthia Valerine Osokogu!! I searched for this name on Facebook a while ago and the first words that hit my eyes from her wall were “RIP Cynthia, I can’t stop crying.” Another African damsel, whose photograph is at the left of the page has been murdered at noonday by sexual predators. Incase you haven’t got the full details, here’s it as reported by the Nigerian Vanguard NewsPaper:

” 24 Year Old Cynthia Osokogu left Abuja in late July 2012 (according to reports, on the 22nd of July 2012). The post-graduate student of Nasarawa State University was a clothing retailer and had travelled to Lagos to purchase new stock.

Cynthia had been chatting with some new “friends” on Facebook for a few months. In the course of their conversations, they developed a friendship and a level of trust. These young men were also university students, they promised to host Cynthia when she came to Lagos.

There is speculation that they paid for her plane ticket and promised to pay for her hotel as well.

The two young men picked Cynthia up from the airport in Lagos and drove her to a hotel in Festac. At the hotel, they tied her up, robbed her of all the money she brought to shop for her business and strangled her to death. They then left the hotel and quickly deleted her from their Facebook friend list to remove any trace of their connection.

Echezona Nwabufor, 33, and Ezekiel Nnechukwu Olisa Eloka, 23, the two suspects held in connection to the brutal murder of Miss Cynthia Osokogu Udoka, were paraded today by the Lagos State Police Command, Ikeja. The suspects who are students, narrated how they drugged and strangled their unsuspecting victm in a bid to steal her money.

One of the suspects, Eloka, said they killed Cynthia because they thought she had a lot of money in her possession. But after the dastardly act, they did not find a reasonable amount of money on her. According to the suspects, “we met her on facebook on our Blackberry. We invited her to come to Lagos to buy goods at cheap prices.

“When she got to Lagos, we took her to a hotel in Festac. We thought she had a lot of money, but she said she didn’t have any money. We gave her Reflon tablet in her Ribena drink. After this, we slept with her for 12 hours in that hotel. We discovered that the tablet did not work quickly on her. “We then attacked her, tied her up and used cello-tape to cover her mouth. After that, we beat her to tell us where she kept the money. When we didn’t get any money from her, we tied her mouth and strangled her and then we abandoned her in the hotel and fled.”

Vanguard reliably gathered that after her death, one of her assailants left the room and later put a call to the hoteliers, informing them that there was a corpse in one of the rooms. The hotel, as gathered, took the corpse to the Isolo General Hospital mortuary. Sources informed that efforts by the hoteliers to contact family of the deceased proved abortive as there was reportedly nothing to trace her close relatives or friends.

Meanwhile, back in Nasarawa State where her family is said to be based, apprehension had set in following her disappearance. She was, therefore, declared missing, with her pictures dropped at some police divisions in the state.

How the suspects were arrested
Vanguard reliably gathered that after the murder, the killers deleted all information and chats with the deceased from their facebook. But, along the line, the deceased phone was dialled and one of the suspects reportedly answered. When the call log was checked from the service provider, the receiver was traced to Festac Town in the Amuwo-Odofin Local Government Area. Again, the Close Circuit Television stationed in the hotel was said to have revealed identities of the killers following which two of them were arrested and their confessional statement led to the arrest of others.

During interrogation, the suspects reportedly confessed to have bought the drugs with which they drugged Cynthia’s drink from a pharmacist, thereby leading to his arrest. It was at this point that her family was reportedly contacted.
They also reportedly confessed to belong to a syndicate which specialised in luring unsuspecting rich women with the aim of dispossessing them of their belongings, particularly cash. The late Cynthia, as gathered, was not their first victim, as they were said to have confessed to the police that she was their sixth victim. ACP Okoro stated that many ATM cards, about 23 SIM cards, different identity cards were recovered from the suspects.Police sources said the two suspects will soon be arraigned in court to answer a charge of murder.”

Security tips in relating with your social media contacts:

1. Don’t volunteer too much information about yourself on social media.

2. Perhaps, you want to have a real-time meeting with one of your social media contacts, ensure the meeting point is in public. Terminate the meeting if they insist it must be away from any sort of scrutiny.

3. Be discerning concerning what you take in. You may not even need to eat or drink anything.

4. Make the meeting as brief as possible.

5. Passing the night over with a person you have barely known via social media is a high-level risk.

6. Make your movement known to a close friend or relatives. Let them know you have a date with a social media contact. Call them and give them full details of your location as soon as you get to the meeting point.